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[magistra]

Ya gotta love the fora:  Where else could someone post a rant bordering on racism and the ensuing conversation becomes a discussion of the Greek and Latin roots of words and the evolution of language?

Where else? In the classrooms we teach in. Considering the ignorance students bring to class, it's about the same thing.

The main difference is that here, on the forums, the ignorant are usually faculty.

Not when you peruse this thread.  I've learned a great deal from our colleagues here.  Haven't you?  Dellaroux, for instance, is amazing.  Thank you, Dellaroux, for your response!  And, Magistra, I take your point.  I was speaking, for about ten minutes, to my Intro to Cultural Anthro class; yours is a far more nuanced discussion.

I'm a complete language nerd.  This stuff fascinates me.

I didn't mean to pick.  I get the soundbite thing in the classroom.  I once did a lot of that for a class -- Greek & Latin roots, as it happens (which is what your students really need, Systeme).  It was rather awful seeing my little asides from Greek myth or whatever quoted back to me verbatim -- but so stripped of context, or inserted into a slightly different context, and thus being all wrong.  My own fault, and really, should I blame them for listening to me?

There are lots of texts with workbooks, some specifically for medical technology, some more general, that the students could buy to do the course on their own.  There's a LOT of memorization, though, so it's best in a course.  Your school should offer it!

[systeme_d_]

Oh, I put the Greek and Latin roots or words on the board, and we talk about them, but I'm not going to stop proselytizing (πρός + έρχομαι !) for studying the languages.  It would open up worlds for many of them.

[entwife]

Little Greek and Latin I taught myself in 5th grade or so quite literally opened up the world. I credit my having income during one really bad economic crisis (not here, not now, much worse) to linguistics; not to mention GRE and all that followed. Unfortunately, to most of my students this makes about as much sense as Greek mythology – fighting hydras, walking to school in the snow, blah-blah-blah. But am thankful for those who do get it.

[temporaryname]

Little Greek and Latin I taught myself in 5th grade or so quite literally opened up the world. I credit my having income during one really bad economic crisis (not here, not now, much worse) to linguistics; not to mention GRE and all that followed. Unfortunately, to most of my students this makes about as much sense as Greek mythology – fighting hydras, walking to school in the snow, blah-blah-blah. But am thankful for those who do get it.

I always forget--was it Heracles or Theseus who heroically walked to school through the snow uphill both ways?

[losemygrip]

It was Theseus.  And it wasn't snow, it was minotaur dung.  The school was in the center of a maze, too.

[ideagirl]

It was Theseus.  And it wasn't snow, it was minotaur dung.  The school was in the center of a maze, too.

And when he wanted to change the channel on the TV, he had to actually get up and go do it himself. There was no such thing as a remote control in ancient Greece.

[born2late]

It was Theseus.  And it wasn't snow, it was minotaur dung.  The school was in the center of a maze, too.

And when he wanted to change the channel on the TV, he had to actually get up and go do it himself. There was no such thing as a remote control in ancient Greece.

They only got three channels anyway.

[daurousseau]

It was Theseus.  And it wasn't snow, it was minotaur dung.  The school was in the center of a maze, too.

And when he wanted to change the channel on the TV, he had to actually get up and go do it himself. There was no such thing as a remote control in ancient Greece.

Achilles begs to differ. How else, without a remote Olympian guiding the arrow, would it have found his heel?

[ideagirl]

It was Theseus.  And it wasn't snow, it was minotaur dung.  The school was in the center of a maze, too.

And when he wanted to change the channel on the TV, he had to actually get up and go do it himself. There was no such thing as a remote control in ancient Greece.

Achilles begs to differ. How else, without a remote Olympian guiding the arrow, would it have found his heel?

Achilles is not a TV. I think we can both agree on that. Achilles is a tendon. He would've gotten tendonitis from all the button clicking, if they'd had remote controls in ancient Greece.

[madhatter]

It was Theseus.  And it wasn't snow, it was minotaur dung.  The school was in the center of a maze, too.

And when he wanted to change the channel on the TV, he had to actually get up and go do it himself. There was no such thing as a remote control in ancient Greece.

They only got three channels anyway.

And it was the Olympic Triplecast.

[joesephpeabody]

When I was a senior in high school, I went to Europe over Spring Break. My teacher had lived in Germany for a while, doing some, um, work as an attache. So his German was VERY good. However, we stayed a couple of nights in Switzerland, and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. The teacher had trouble understanding the waitress. He finally figured out that not only didn't she speak true German, she wasn't speaking true Italian either. She was from the part of the country that was near Italy, and apparently she spoke a mix of German, Italian, and something else.  Is that was Romansch is?

All I know is, we had trouble getting her to understand we wanted hot chocolate. After the German for it didn't work, we finally tried Nestle's and mimed something hot. That worked.

Romansch will  "sound"  German to someone who does not speak German, although of course it has roots in Latin. However, there is not a single person in Switzerland who only speaks Romansch and nothing else. Most native Romansch-speakers live in areas that geographically overlap with Swiss Germans. But that's getting off the point: it is entirely possible that waitress might speak a Swiss-German dialect, and refuse to speak high German. Especially if you were in some xenophobic portion of "inner Switzerland", and she thought that your companion were from Germany.

I lived & worked in German Switzerland for six years.

J.P.

[michiexile]

What about Switzerland?  It's a trilingual country, quadrilingual if you count Schweizdeutsch.  Plus there's Romansch . . . .  It hasn't exactly caused them any economic problems, has it?

It's trilingual, and Schweizdeutsch/Swiss German is the only German to count:
(1) Swiss German
(2) French
(3) Romansch

That's in order of how many people speak each language (largest to smallest, obviously).

What? No Italian?

Edit: And of course, right after hitting Post, I go to the next page and see the many other people pointing out the same thing. Apologies.

[gennimom]

When I was a senior in high school, I went to Europe over Spring Break. My teacher had lived in Germany for a while, doing some, um, work as an attache. So his German was VERY good. However, we stayed a couple of nights in Switzerland, and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. The teacher had trouble understanding the waitress. He finally figured out that not only didn't she speak true German, she wasn't speaking true Italian either. She was from the part of the country that was near Italy, and apparently she spoke a mix of German, Italian, and something else.  Is that was Romansch is?

All I know is, we had trouble getting her to understand we wanted hot chocolate. After the German for it didn't work, we finally tried Nestle's and mimed something hot. That worked.

Romansch will  "sound"  German to someone who does not speak German, although of course it has roots in Latin. However, there is not a single person in Switzerland who only speaks Romansch and nothing else. Most native Romansch-speakers live in areas that geographically overlap with Swiss Germans. But that's getting off the point: it is entirely possible that waitress might speak a Swiss-German dialect, and refuse to speak high German. Especially if you were in some xenophobic portion of "inner Switzerland", and she thought that your companion were from Germany.

I lived & worked in German Switzerland for six years.

J.P.

We were in Lucerne, the waitress was quite elderly, and we were told she was from one of the border areas. There was no mistaking that we were a bunch of American high school students. The teacher may have lived in Germany, but he was most definitely American. He wasn't trying to appear German anyway. One thing I've learned about a lot of elderly people is that, a lot of times they can't be bothered to learn another language or dialect. That is why you can still run into people down in Cajun country that do not speak English. I don't know if that is why this waitress was having so much trouble understanding us, but it is one possible explanation.